The Elements of Poetry

(A Review)
 William Wordsworth, the great
Romantic poet, defined poetry as:

"the spontaneous overflow

of powerful feelings,
recollected in tranquility."
Poetry is a piece of literature
written in meter, using imagery
and figures of speech to appeal
to or gain the interest of the
reader’s emotions and
imagination.
 Poetry is the most
condensed and
concentrated form of
literature, saying most in
the fewest number of
words. Saying more, and
saying it intensely.
The Major Forms of Poetry Are:
• the epic
• the lyric
• the ballad
 THE EPIC

An extended narrative poem recounting

actions, travels, adventures, and heroic
episodes and written in a high style.
 Characteristics of the Classical Epic
• The main character or protagonist is heroically
larger than life, often the source and subject of
legend or a national hero.
• The deeds of the hero are presented without
favoritism, revealing his failings as well as his
virtues.
• The action, often in battle, reveals the more-
than-human strength of the heroes as they
engage in acts of heroism and courage.
• The setting covers several nations, the whole
world, or even the universe.
• The episodes, even though they may be
fictional, provide an explanation for some of
the circumstances or events in the history of a
nation or people.
• The gods and lesser divinities play an active
role in the outcome of actions.
• All of the various adventures form an organic
whole, where each event relates in some way to
the central theme.
Examples of Epics
• Homer, Iliad
• Homer, Odyssey
• Virgil, Aeneid
• Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered
• Milton, Paradise Lost
 Ballads
• A narrative folk song, the ballad is traced back to the
Middle Ages. Ballads were usually created by common
people and passed orally due to the illiteracy of the
time. Subjects for ballads include killings, feuds,
important historical events, and rebellion. For example,
in the international ballad “Lord Randall,” the young
man is poisoned by his sweetheart, and in “Edward,”
the son commits patricide.
• A common stylistic element of the ballad is
repetition.
• “Lord Randall” illustrates this well with the
phrase at the end of each verse: “…mother,
make my bed soon, for I’m sick at the heart
and I fain wad lie down.”
• The ballad occurs in very early literature in
nearly every nation. Thus, ballads can help us
understand a given culture by showing us what
values or norms that culture deemed
important.
 Lyric
• A lyric is a song-like poem written mainly to
express the feelings of emotions or thought
from a particular person. These poems are
generally short, averaging twelve to thirty lines,
and rarely go beyond sixty lines. These poems
express vivid imagination as well as emotion.
Because of this, as well as a steady rhythm, they
were often used in song. In fact, most people
still see a "lyric" as anything that is sung along
to a musical instrument.
• The lyric may have begun in Ancient
Egypt around 2600 BC in the form of
hymns generated out of religious
ceremonies.
• The importance of understanding the
lyric can best be shown through its
remarkable ability to express with such
imagination the innermost emotions of
the soul.
How Should a Poem
Be
Read????
• To read a poem, one must
concentrate on its words and
the way they connect with one
another.
• Some poems use the same
elements as fiction; however,
they are secondary to the
images, metaphors, tones of
voice, and allusions
(suggestions, references).
Different Ways of Reading Poetry:
a. Pure explanation: paraphrasing
the poem, turning its lines into
prose.

b. Explication: tries to account

for the whole poem by attending
to its sounds, suggestions of
meaning, and shapeliness.
*No explication is equal
to the poem itself, but it
does come close to
pointing out what
affects us in the poem.
 Begin with the title; it sometimes
provides a clue or a description.
• Then, read the words. Remember,
words have denotations (dictionary
definitions) and connotations (the
word, its family, origins,
associations, etc.). Both serve
the writer within a poem; however,
in the context of a poem, not
every meaning is active.
The Elements of
Poetry
Figures of Speech (Comparisons)
• Phrases or words • Figures of speech
that compare one can enhance style
thing to another and make ideas
unlike thing. distinct.
• Figurative language does not mean exactly what it
says, but instead forces the reader to make an
imaginative leap in order to comprehend an
author's point. It usually involves a comparison
between two things that may not, at first, seem to
relate to one another.
 Different Types of
Comparisons/Figures of Speech:
• Simile • Personification
• Metaphor • Hyperbole

• Metonymy • Synecdoche
• Apostrophe
 A Simile
makes a comparison between two
unlike things using an explicit
word such as as, like, resembles,
or than .
• In a simile, for example, an author may
compare a person to an animal: "He ran like a
hare down the street."
• This is the figurative way to describe the man
running, and "He ran very quickly down the
street" is the literal way to describe him.
 The spider’s web hung like
delicate lace across the open
barn door.
 Metaphor
• states one thing is something else but,
literally, it is not. It does not use
the words: as, like, resembles, or
than.

• Metaphoric language is used in order to

realize a new and different meaning.
Metaphors are great contributors to
poetry because the reader understands a
likeness between two essentially
different things.
A metaphor may be found in a simple comparison or
largely as the image of an entire poem

Life is a candle, too soon blown

out.
“My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun - / In corners
– till a Day / The Owner passed – identified -
/ And carried me away”.

Of course, the narrator is not really a

gun. The metaphor carries with it all the
qualities of a “Loaded Gun”. The speaker in
the poem is making a series of comparisons
between themselves and the qualities of a gun.
 Personification
Refers to a special kind of
metaphor in which nonhuman things
or qualities are described as if
they were human.

• In other words: animals, ideas or inorganic

objects are given human characteristics.
“The wind stood up and gave a shout.
He whistled on his two fingers.”
• Of course the wind did not actually "stand up,"
but this image of the wind creates a vivid
picture of the wind's wild actions.

• The wind is endowed with human

characteristics making the poem more
interesting and achieving a much more vivid
image of the way wind whips around a room.
 Hyperbole
is an extravagant exaggeration. From the Greek
for "overcasting," hyperbole is a figure of
speech that is a grossly exaggerated description
or statement. In literature, such exaggeration is
used for emphasis or vivid descriptions.
• Hyperbole is even a part of our day-to-day
speech: ‘You’ve grown like a bean sprout’ or
‘I’m older than the hills.’ Hyperbole is
used to increase the effect of a description,
whether it is metaphoric or comic.
 In poetry, hyperbole can
emphasize or dramatize a
person’s opinions or
emotions. Poets use hyperbole
to describe intense emotions
and mental states.
 Metonymy
substitutes one term with another that is
being associated with the that term.

• For example, in the book of Genesis 3:19, it

refers to Adam by saying that “by the sweat of
your brow, you will eat your food.” Sweat
represents the hard labor that Adam will have to
endure to produce the food that will sustain his
life. The sweat on his brow is a vivid picture of
how hard he is working to attain a goal.
 In other words, metonymy, refers to a
thing, person, or place by the name of
something closely associated with it.

For example:
The hired gun made friends
as he moved from town to
town.
 Synecdoche
Substitutes a part of a person, place, or
thing for the whole person, place, or
thing.
For instance:
The crowned heads of Europe met at
the Swiss embassy.
 Apostrophe
consists in addressing someone absent or
something nonhuman as if it were alive
and present and could reply to what is
being said:
O Menopause

When will you come forth and bless me?

Thirty years of monthly visits have left me tired.
I do not wish for more of a brood than I already
have.
No more mouths to feed, please.
 IMAGERY

Language that appeals

to the 5 senses!
The ability to uses imagery stems from being a good
observer of the world.

• A poet wants the

reader to
visualize, smell,
taste, hear, and
relate to the
touch/feel of
his/descriptions.
ONOMATOPOEIA
• The use of words
that sound like the
things they name.
They appeal to the
sense of sound and
can invoke clear,
strong images:
cows moo, bees
buzz, and lions
roar.
 TONE
• The poem’s tone reveals the author’s
attitude toward a subject (Irony,
sarcasm…). Tone is easy to miss or
misinterpret.
• For example, the sentence, “That’s fine” can
have different meanings depending on the
context in which it is used. It may be said
matter-of-factly, sarcastically, or with
sympathy.
 SYMBOLISM
• The use of
symbols (one set
of particulars
standing in for
another set of
relationships).
There are Different
Kinds of Symbols:
 Conventional/Traditional
images or phrases that
have acquired
meaning over
centuries of
association: the
cross of Christ.
 Literary Symbols
A series of words that create an
image, event, or character that
is complex.
• Cain and Able: The two brothers stood for good
and evil, humility and pride. Cain pulled Able to the
fields and killed him. In this is a hidden symbol. It is
showing that Cain stands for the bad and Able
stands for the good
 Natural Symbols
From nature:
night is
used as a
symbol of
death and
so is
autumn.
Another Element of
Poetry
is
Repetition
 REPETITION
Often a poet will use
repetition for emphasis
or to add rhythm and
flow to words.
 There are
Different
Types of
Repetition.
 ASSONANCE
Repetition of vowel sounds:

beside the white

glazed with rain
 ALLITERATION
Repetition of two or
more words that
have the same
initial consonant
sound:
The sun rises
from the sea.
Another example of Alliteration:

Sam picked sea shells by the sea

shore.
Rhythm
and
Rhyme
 Rhythm
The word “rhythm” is the pulse
or beat felt in a line of
poetry. It is the regular
arrangement/pattern of
accents or stresses on the
syllables of words in a poem.
 Stress
A stress or an
accent is the
emphasis put on a
syllable.
 Syllable
that which is pronounced as a unit.
A word may be made up of only one
syllable (win, hit) or parts of
words may be pronounced as a unit.
These parts usually are made up of
a vowel or a vowel with one or
more consonants (dis-ap-prov-al,
can-di-date).
 When a word has more than one syllable,
one of the syllables is pronounced louder
than others. This is called the accented
syllable. It is marked with an accent
mark.
• The same word can be accented in
different ways depending on how it is
used:
Con‫ – ׳‬tent (noun)
Con – tent‫( ׳‬adjective)
Pro‫ – ׳‬test (noun)
Pro – test‫( ׳‬verb)
 METER
The patterns of accents
or stresses in poetry
are measured by meter.
The word “meter” comes
from a word meaning
measure.
 FOOT
The basic unit of meter in
poetry. It is a group of
syllables, one of which is
usually stressed: one
accented syllable + one or
two unaccented syllables.
There are five
different kinds
of metrical
feet:
1. The iambic meter/iambic
foot
2. The trochaic 3. The anapestic
meter/trochee meter / the
foot anapest foot

4. The dactylic 5. The spondaic

meter / the meter / spondee
dactyl foot foot
 The Iambic meter
has one unaccented
syllable followed by
one accented one:
The sun
 Trochaic Meter
has one accented
syllable followed by an
unaccented one:

Lon – don, fal – ling

The iambic and
the trochaic are
called duple
meters (double).
 Anapestic Meter
Two unstressed syllables
followed by one unaccented
syllable:

in – ter – vene, in a hut

 Dactylic Meter
One stressed syllable
followed by two unstressed
syllables:
• en – ter – prise
• co – lor of.
The anapestic and
the dactylic are
called triple
meters.
 Spondaic Meter
• two stressed syllables,
usually used for effect or
emphasis:

• true – blue.
A poet can choose between
writing in meter or in
free verse.
Free Verse: poetry that
doesn’t have a regular
meter or rhyme scheme. It
tries to capture the
natural rhythm of ordinary
speech.
To indicate the metrical
pattern of a poem by
marking the stressed
and unstressed syllables
is:
to scan.
 RHYME :
Rhyme gives poems
flow and rhythm,
helping the lyricist tell
a story and convey a
mood.
 Rhyme is defined as
the matching of final vowel
and consonant sounds in
two or more words.
There are Several
Types of
Rhyme:
 End Rhyme
•Rhymes at the end of a
poetic line:
I simply don’t know what to do
In a world that is without you
 Internal Rhyme
• Rhyming words within a line of
poetry with an end of the line
sound:

sister, my sister, O fleet sweet swallow

The moon never beams without bringing me dreams.

 Approximate Rhyme
• words that are similar but do
not rhyme exactly:

Though we both feel the sting

One will lose, and the other win
 Perfect Rhyme
words that have the same number
of syllables and stresses
while having the same vowel
and consonant sounds:

And what wul ye doe wi’ your towirs and your ha’
That were sae fair to see, O?
Ile let thame stand tul they doun fa’
 Rhyme scheme (rime skeem):

the pattern of rhyme used in a poem; it is

indicated by matching lowercase letters
to show which lines rhyme.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? a
Thou art more lovely and more temperate. b
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May. a
And summer's lease hath all too short a date. b
The letter "a" notes the first line,
and all other lines rhyming with
the first line. The first line that
does not rhyme with the first, or
"a" line, and all others that
rhyme with this line, is noted by
the letter "b", and so on.
 STYLE
incorporates diction (the
poet’s choice of words),
figurative language,
imagery, symbolism, and
sentence length.
 Setting/Occasion
• the time, place, physical details, and
circumstances in which a situation
occurs
• The instance/circumstances that
caused the poet to compose the poem
 Theme:
common thread or repeated idea that
is incorporated throughout poem. A
theme is a thought or idea the
author presents to the reader that
may be deep, difficult to
understand, or even moralistic.
The ability to recognize a theme
is important because it allows
the reader to comprehend part
of the author’s purpose in
writing the poem.
 Speaker

the persona,the narrator, or the

storyteller of a poem created by
the author: It may or may not be
the poet.
 Allusions
references to a person, place, or
thing in history or another work of
literature. Allusions are often
indirect or brief references to well-
known characters or events.
Poetry lines can be
divided into:
Stanzas
A stanza is a group within
a poem which may have
two or many lines.
2 lines – couplet
3 lines – tercet
4 lines – quatrain
5 lines – quintet
6 lines – sestet
7 lines – septet
8 lines - octave
 An Example of a Couplet

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long as lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Poetry is Like No Other
Genre
It is expressive, imaginative,
creative; it is magical!
Poetry alone can encapsulate the
magic of nature: a summer's
breeze, the blooming of a flower;
the magic of being human: an
intense emotional moment; etc.
Most believe poetry is boring
 HOWEVER,
When you choose
your poetry
assignments, I
want you to
celebrate the
opportunity of
glimpsing
someone else’s
creative energy at
work. The poet’s
mind is a great
place to visit a
while! I want you to
look like this:
Robert Frost (1874 – 1963)
• Robert Lee Frost was
born in San
Francisco on March
26, 1874 and died in
Boston on January
29, 1963. He was
one of America's
leading 20th-century
poets and a four-
time winner of the
Pulitzer Prize.
• An essentially pastoral (countrified)
poet, Frost’s verse forms are traditional
- he often said, in a dig at arch rival
Carl Sandberg, that he would as soon
play tennis without a net as write free
verse - he was a pioneer in the
interplay of rhythm and meter and in
the poetic use of the vocabulary and
inflections of everyday speech. His
poetry is thus both traditional and
experimental, regional and universal.
Fire & Ice
Some say the world will end in
fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Begin with the Title: Fire & Ice
The alternatives in the title represent
passion and hatred. Fire has
traditionally been a symbol for passion,
ardor, excitement, fervor, etc.
Ice has traditionally been a symbol for
cold-heartedness, coolness, frigidity,
hatred, extreme dislike.
• From the very beginning, the
reader is presented with polar
opposites! Thus, we may think
the poem will be about
contradiction, disagreement,
negation, etc..
• It becomes apparent that the poem
is deceptively simple on the
surface.
• It opens with words foretelling global
doom:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
• Slowly, the words come to indicate
personal experience.
 From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.

• Fire and ice become symbolic of great

human emotions--the essence of life.
Paradoxically, these forces of destruction
are emblems of life.
 But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
• Frost associates "fire" with "desire." Desire is a
longing or a wish. This poem may be viewed as a death-
wish. The implication is that destruction is inevitable;
but the speaker doesn't care. He does not make an issue
of whether there should be destruction. It does not
matter. What does matter is which form of destruction
would be preferred.
• He is infatuated with the degree of emotion involved.
For both extremes, he relies on his own life's
experience. Fiery desire (which he "favors") connotes
passionate love--in opposition to cold hatred. However,
if he would "perish twice," ice would also suffice for
one way to go. Ice is associated with hatred, another
"great" emotion. (He says "also great," meaning fire is
at least as "great" as ice.) With or without destruction,
what the persona really values are the great emotions
of living. To go out with both extremes of human
feeling is preferred even over going out twice with
burning love.
 Experiencing
the heights and depths of human emotion is
the point--even if it kills him.
One cannot make a choice really between fire and
ice; they are, after all, two sides of the same coin.

• Desire and hatred represent an endlessly regenerative

cycle.

• Fire is directly equated with desire, the kind that

kindles antagonism and conflict. Ice is equated with
hate. Fire and ice are born in the dark reaches of the
inner soul, in the smoldering, ice-sheathed human
heart.
 The terror in the poem is so casually understated. The
understatement is most evident in the fifth and last lines of the poem.
"But if it had to perish twice," Frost says, as if the incineration of the
world were little more than a passing sickness. "And would suffice,"
he concludes in a typically unemphatic last line.
• The use of first-person pronouns in lines 3, 4, and 6 contributes to
the understatement, suggesting that the poem is only an expression
of lightly held personal opinion. This is a deceptive strategy of
understatement since the poem is truly about the chronic
malfunction of the human heart.

• “Fire and Ice" hints at the destructive powers of the

heat of love or passion and the cold of hate. The poem
presents a much more profound distinction between the
two extremes of love and hate; Frost condemns hatred
as far worse than desire.